


Oh! Welcome Home

by LauraEMoriarty



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 20:12:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraEMoriarty/pseuds/LauraEMoriarty
Summary: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.A fix-it fic for the Citadel DLC.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> To the amazing Potionsmaster, the saviour of my writing, thank you so much-- one of the best decisions I ever made in the fandom was to message you about your Arthurian AU. You are amazing, and you manage to get me unstuck when I get stuck. <3 And to Super-Responsible-Pancake, the art is fucking amazing. Thank you both. And to Lena, who is my friend, and cheerleader, a huge thanks goes to you, too.
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_“Land ho!” The ship’s boy in the forecastle calls down to the waiting crew assembled around the foredeck, hands on swords as they prepare for battle. “And ships sighted!”_

_“All hands to battle stations!” The captain shouts, her swords drawn as the Normandy prepares to board the other vessel. There is chaos on the other ship and the captain leads her party onboard while shouting orders, her blade slicing cleanly through the rigging on the other ship_.

Adelaide Shepard blinks awake, her eyes searching the semi-darkened room for the clock. For the first time since the war started, she has slept well, her pillow soft, her mattress comfortable, no haunting dreams of a child and the voices of the dead whispering her name. In fact, going by her dream, her brain has taken a leave of absence with the war. It takes her a moment to realise that she’s not aboard the _Normandy_ , there is no humming of the drive core, no soft pinging of her terminal telling her there’s more bad news waiting to be opened. She is on shore leave, while her ship is put into dry dock, pending desperately-needed repairs. For once, she is grateful for the enforced downtime. Usually, she hates shore leave, but after the few weeks of hell that she’s had-- she desperately needs it.

Stretching, she throws the heavy coverlet off her body and rolls out of bed. Padding to the bathroom, Adelaide strips and stands under the showerhead, enjoying the feeling of the pressurised water against stiff and sore muscles. Humming a song as she shampoos her long strawberry blonde hair, she relishes the heat of the shower. She hasn’t had a shower this great since…. Well, ever. Showers aboard the _Normandy_ are a perfunctory thing-- something to tick off the list of things to do, whereas now, she has the luxury of time.

“' _Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar_ ,” she sings, the words to an old Irish seafaring chant, that she can’t quite remember how she knows the words, or even remembers them. Her father would sing to her at night before bed, and Adelaide grew up singing with him of an evening. It is the only thing that makes sense, as to how she knows this particular song. They had been a happy family, long ago, she recalls, as she turns the water off, reaching for a fluffy towel and wraps it around herself, then steps out of the shower.

She stands naked before the mirror in her room, and looks at her Cerberus-created body. In their reconstruction, they lost her scars that for so long defined her-- the scar that ran along her pubic bone is gone, the bullet scar below that on her thigh, also gone, as is the scar that ran from her navel and terminated just above the pubic bone, not quite meeting it. Her body is not soft and inviting-- it is the hard planes of a soldier, carved out from painful experiences. Her hips are wide, and had she remained on Mindoir, they would’ve widened still from childbearing. They got her hair and skin right-- and the colour of her eyes, but the erasure of the scars that made up such an intrinsic part of her identity still stings. Her startlingly blue eyes stare back at her, and her small mouth puckers in distaste. The smattering of freckles she could’ve done without, but she knows that they, like the scars Cerberus erased, are a sum of the total body.

It has been exactly one year since her resurrection, eight months since her suicide run through the Omega Four Relay. It has been sixteen weeks since the Reapers showed up on Earth’s doorstep, bashing their way in. Fourteen weeks since curing the genophage. Five weeks since taking back Rannoch and forging peace between quarians and geth. She no longer measures time in years and months, but rather weeks and hours-- one week since the fiasco of Thessia.

Quickly, she turns her gaze away from her own image. She does not love her body, nor any part of it. Not for a long time. Not since those scars were erased, that tiny, insignificant sum of who she is to so many people, but they mean everything to her. Often, Adelaide has wondered if she really is the legendary Shepard they call the hero of the Citadel, the vanquisher of Saren, and all those myriad titles they heap upon her until she is left screaming into silent space, the final void that holds so many mysteries. They chip away at her own self-worth and she sighs.

The darkest and most dubious of all the titles she holds is that of Butcher of Torfan. A single  day of slaughter has forever marked her, and she hates that memory most of all.

_Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown._

She dresses quickly, donning the few clothes she owns that aren’t Alliance-issued. Her black leggings and light green shimmering silk tank beneath a beaten up leather jacket that once belonged to her father are her clothes of choice. Pulling on biker boots, she makes sure the zippers at the side are closed fully up her calves, before tugging the laces to tighten them. She winds a pale pink cashmere and silk scarf around her neck, and surveys herself once more in the mirror. Digging into her pockets, she finds a pair of earrings-- cheap and tawdry, but they’ll do-- and hooks them through her earlobes.

Adelaide steps out into blissful anonymity, into the rush of people who care only for the next play Francis Kitt is directing, the latest art installation by Forta, the haute-couture world of fashion. In this crowd, she is not Commander Shepard, she is simply a strawberry blonde woman in search of a glass of wine, and a decent conversation that doesn’t involve war and its myriad casualties. If such a thing exists, she knows she will find it on the Silversun Strip. The lure of oblivion, and the promise of a night of dancing and drinking, are what spur her on now. She turns a corner as her omnitool lights up.

 _Fuck_ . The last thing she wants is to answer, or even see anything on her tool. _Awesome. Not even ten minutes since showering, there’s a fucking crisis that needs me_ , Adelaide thinks as she ducks into a shadowy alcove. In the relative privacy, she brings up the message interface and reads the rather odd, spontaneous message from Joker inviting her to eat with him at a fancy sushi place. Deciding her night’s plans would be far more entertaining with Joker, she shoots a quick reply, and brings up the navdata to lead her there.

The line stretches for a block, with people complaining about the long wait times to get a table. Adelaide sighs, and prepares for a long wait. She watches those ahead of her carefully, hearing two young-looking asari arguing with their quarian companion, a duo of krogan conspicuously out of place among the other diners, three salarians speaking in manic tones to their queue companions. They talk of ordinary things, not the war, and she is grateful that at least on one part of the Citadel, the war is only an abstract concept, not a real thing to these delusional fools.

They haven’t seen the bullet holes in Docking Bay D24’s emergency civilian housing, they haven’t seen what she has-- the wholesale destruction of entire planets and systems decimated by Reapers. These people on this part of the Citadel have never even heard of Reapers, they simply cannot comprehend the war. She envies them their innocence, envies the bubble they live in. She cannot do that—she cannot live in that world, that existence that is so safe and sanctified.

“Your table is ready,” Adelaide hears someone say, somewhere close by her ear. She turns her head to see a waiter, and follows the Frenchman to a secluded table where Joker is already seated.

“Hey Commander,” Joker grins, as Adelaide slides into the seat across from him.

“Hey Joker,” Adelaide returns, a warm smile curving across her face. “Thanks for the invitation.”

Joker’s face shifts into confusion. “I thought you invited me?”

There is a sudden change in the air. It becomes tense, poised on the edge of something. The hairs on the back of Adelaide’s neck begin to prickle and there is an uneasy feeling growing in her gut. Something’s wrong, and yet as she takes in the calm of the restaurant, the chatter still a chorus of lively conversation, she knows she’s the only one that feels the eerie stillness before the floodgates open.

_By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…_

She becomes gradually aware of the scene outside the restaurant; the bouncers trying to restrain someone. Sighing, Adelaide glances across and a woman in an Alliance formal uniform is trying to make her presence known to her. The emphatic waving of a data pad and the frantic pace at which she is trying to mow down everyone in her way suggests to Adelaide that there is something urgent.

 _So much for ‘you need a break, Adelaide’_ , she thinks wryly. _Shore leave? More like ‘shore leave until the next crisis hits…’_

“Commander!” The dark complected woman in the Alliance uniform finally pushes her way through, as protests begin buzzing through the restaurant.

It is clear to Adelaide that Alliance personnel are not a common sight in this place-- the woman draws attention to herself; conspicuous in her navy blue and gold, in a sea of sombre colours. Heads turn to stare and the woman barrels her way past in her attempt to get to Adelaide. When she finally reaches the table, Adelaide stands, and gives the woman a good, long look.

_Something’s off…. Really off. First the absolute desperation and rush. Her uniform looks too pristine this late in the war, and if she really is Alliance, she would’ve gone through official channels._

“Yes?” Adelaide asks, her tone terse, alert. “What do they want?”

“Um, sorry. New at this. My name’s Brooks. Um, someone’s trying to hack into your Alliance credentials,” Brooks stammers, clearly flustered.

Adelaide quirks her eyebrow, questioningly. There’s something about this Brooks that doesn’t read right to her, almost as though she’s too inept to be truly Alliance. Even Traynor, who had spent her entire career in Alliance R&D wasn’t this flustered, or this green. Brooks doesn’t carry herself like Alliance-- and Adelaide wonders fleetingly if she’s a Cerberus plant, then dismisses the notion as absurd.

“Get on with it,” Adelaide snaps, deciding she’s really not in the mood for shit or shenanigans.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Faster than she can process, there’s an invasion of troops. Their uniforms are too unusual and distinctive for them to be anything but Cerberus—her mind leaps from that, to the guns they’re using, and then the ceiling caves in. She ducks out of the way, and then the fish tank shatters underneath her.

She falls, a glorious arm-flailing free-fall. The world spins as she comes closer and closer to impending death and doom, and she braces for the impact. She lands, hard. The impact jars her, her teeth clicking together. There is blood in her mouth, and her head spins. Her shins ache. She spits, and tastes metal. She tries to stand, and can only make it onto her hands and knees—and curses herself for not wearing some form of armour.

“Lola!”  A burst of noise through her comms channel.

“I’m okay,” she grinds out through gritted teeth, the glass shards pricking in her palms.

“Who is this?” It’s the woman from the sushi restaurant, and Adelaide wonders just how she managed to survive.

“James Vega.” James replies.

“You need to keep off the comms. I don’t know if we’re being tracked,” Brooks says, and Adelaide swears under her breath.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Adelaide bites, the pain in her side getting worse with each second that passes. Of course, when she needs it most, the medigel grows legs and wanders off. Pain makes her cranky. It always does.

“Someone who doesn’t want you to die,” Brooks says. “I think I’ve used too much medigel…”

_For fuck’s sake._

“Where are you, Lola?”

Adelaide takes a moment to get her bearings. There’s a used skycar lot, and several garish neon signs advertising special ‘services’ for the discerning client. An old Alliance recruitment poster is peeling from the wall, bearing her stupid mug for all the galaxy to see. She hisses as she tries to stand, grabbing at her side. Glancing down, she realises that there’s a weeping wound. And with no medigel, she’s pretty sure she’ll bleed out.

“Near a skycar lot. Do you have any medigel?” Adelaide grinds out, her tolerance for pain shattered as the blood gushes from her side. Her favourite jacket is ruined—it’s so hard to get blood out of lambskin leather.

“Yeah. Hold on, I’m coming,” James says, and Adelaide is relieved when she sees him.

She has never been more grateful for his presence.

James helps her to stand, and steadies her when she stumbles. He grips her gently but firmly, holding her at arm’s length, and she reads the concern in his eyes. She wants to hug him for coming to her rescue like some long ago knight in shining armour. Except, his armour isn’t shining, and he isn’t a knight, but an extremely efficient soldier. She’s not a damsel in distress, either, but she wants, just once, to feel like one.

“I think my shin is fractured,” she says, as she hobbles with James’s help to the skycar nearest to them. “I landed pretty badly.”

“Let’s have a look,” James says, as he opens up his omnitool’s scanner, running it over her body. She winces as the readout displays the damage she’s done.

“That’s…. not good,” she manages to say through the pain.

“Not at all.” James agrees, as he applies medigel to the worst of the wounds.

She leans into his touch, grateful that they are alone for the moment. She’s loved him since she first met him, way back when he had been her guard on Earth, but she’s keenly aware that they cannot embark on any relationship. Long talks into the wee hours of the morning, laughing, him always watching her back on every mission.

He holds her close, in the moments it takes for the medigel to start working. She rests her head on his shoulder, eyes closing. His hand cradles the back of her head, and she looks up at him, vulnerable, and entirely human. She likes how his hand feels on her neck, and she wants so much more than just that touch. He closes the tiny space, his lips a hair’s breadth away from hers.

“What’s going on?”

The moment is broken, and Adelaide jumps at Ashley’s voice.

She flinches in pain as she and James break apart. So close—so dangerously close to crossing the line she knows she never should. But she wants to cross it—desperately.

“The usual. Shepard upsets people and gets injured in the process,” Adelaide replies drily. “This time, it was some random PMC crew.” She picks up the gun, a foreign-looking piece of tech. “Found a gun. Silenced pistol. Not sure where it’s from.”

Ashley’s brows furrow, and she glances at the other woman who has reached them. “That doesn’t sound good, LT.”

“It isn’t, gunny,” Adelaide quips—there’s something light-hearted in her tone as she speaks. But the pain still burns down her legs. Fucking medigel hasn’t kicked in yet.

“Shepard!” Wrex suddenly appears, Grunt hot on his heels. “We heard the fighting, and the shattering glass. Followed the trail of destruction, and you were in the thick of it.”

“Were you planning on bashing heads in without me, Shepard?” Grunt puts in, and Adelaide catches the wicked gleam in his eyes.

She shakes her head, and smiles. “I would never do that to you, Grunt,” she croons, feeling the powerful rush of affection that always threatens to overwhelm her when Grunt’s around.

“That’s all good, but aren’t we supposed to, like, figure out who they were and what they wanted?” Brooks pipes up, interrupting. “Shouldn’t we get it to someone?”

All heads turn to stare at Brooks and glare simultaneously at her. The unwelcome interloper. The one who has no business interrupting Shepard and Grunt. Ashley stares at her incredulously. Then Garrus coughs, the tension breaking.

“We will, once we get our heads around why someone wants to kill me—again,” Adelaide says.

Brooks looks like she’d rather eat dung than let Shepard do things her own way. Adelaide grins, an unpleasant smile that mocks her usual warm one. In that smile, it is easy to imagine the retribution on Torfan, the day of terror and slaughter, and her reputation cemented. Fire dances in her azure eyes, and Brooks backs away, horrified.

“Or, not.” Brooks says.

Adelaide stands, James’s arm around her waist as they hobble to the elevator. The others crowd in behind them, shielding Adelaide from Brooks. They’ve picked up on her mistrust, and Brooks is excluded in their tight-knit group.

Adelaide feels the waves of Brooks’s displeasure ripple off her as they ride up to Tiberius Towers.

With James’s help, Adelaide unlocks the door to the apartment. She leans on him, the earlier wounds still stinging. She limps up the stairs, James following. They are so dangerously close to throwing away all the regulations, but she doesn’t care. Let it happen—after the losses on Thessia—losses she blames herself for—they deserve some rest and relaxation.

“Adelaide,” James uses her proper name, not Lola, and she looks at him, seeing the dark circles under his eyes. The fatigue of the war is written large on his face, and she wants to wipe that fatigue away, but they both know that’s an impossible dream. She closes her eyes as he sits down on the bed next to her, leaning against him. He is solid and warm, and so real.

The bedroom door is shut, and he helps her out of her bloodied clothing. He says nothing as he takes in her scars, and Adelaide isn’t sure whether she should draw attention to them. It feels natural—not awkward—for James to help her undress, and he turns his back long enough for her to wriggle out of her undergarments. She moves slowly to the bathroom, desperate to wash the blood out of her hair, desperate to wash off the mess that has accumulated since she left the apartment just hours earlier.

She showers, slowly, carefully, trying to get the shards of glass out of her skin without crying out in pain. The water cascades, and she watches the blood run down her legs and into the drain. She goes back to that day on Torfan—the aftermath, when blood had soaked her underthings. She’d never seen such blood and it haunts her dreams.

Bloody retribution, a killing calm and slaughter.

That day will never leave her.

She brings her hands up to her neck, and bows her head under the shower stream. She rests her back against the wall of the shower, and slides down, until she is in the corner of the large shower access, legs drawn up to her knees as the water and blood run into the drain. Shivering.

Adelaide never wants to feel that way again—she had revelled in the bloodshed, the way the calmness settled over her. Now, they’ve lost Thessia, and her killing instincts had not saved the asari. They had been butchered, and she had not been able to save them. And now this—some attempt on her life—but why?

She can think of several batarians in the hegemony who would gladly see her head on a pike. She can think of several batarians who would argue against that—given her actions to save Ahratot. The sinner, and the saint. She doesn’t know which she is—has never known which she is.

“Adelaide?” Ashley’s voice comes through the door, and Adelaide glances up. “I’m coming in. I have warm towels and a soft robe.”

“Come in,” Adelaide says, her voice soft and broken.

The door opens, and Ashley comes in, armed with towels and a fluffy dressing gown. She puts the dressing gown on the vanity, and stands in front of Adelaide. “You look like shit. Want to talk?”

Adelaide shakes her head. “No.”

Ashley fixes her with a stare that has her in mind of being sent to the headmistress’s office.

“I failed.” Adelaide says finally. “I failed on Thessia, and I just…. I failed, Ash.”

“You’re human,” Ashley says, as she bends down to take Adelaide’s hand and pull her up. “If you weren’t crying  in the shower over it, I would think you really were the Butcher.”

Adelaide flinches as Ashley uses the title. “How do you know I’m not still her? That the bubbling rage from that day doesn’t still simmer beneath?”

“You wouldn’t be holed up in the shower,” Ashley says, as Adelaide wraps a towel around herself, and then wraps a towel around her head, turbaning her hair.

“I’ll be right,” Adelaide says—knowing she will never be right. But she has to be the Commander, the one who saved the Citadel from Saren, the first Human Spectre in the galaxy, and she has to get to the bottom of what happened earlier.

“Of course you will be,” Ashley says. “But, if you ever need to talk… you know where I am.”

“Thanks.” Her voice is small, and it would take so very little for her to burst into sobs. “Can you send James in?”

“Will do,” Ashley agrees, readily

“Lola?” James says, as Adelaide sits on the bed, still wrapped in a towel. She is numb now, numb and empty.

“I can’t do this,” she says. “I failed so badly on Thessia—we were there too late. Too, too late. And I failed. I failed, and their deaths are all on me. How many did we lose? How many did we sacrifice so we could get to that stupid Temple of Athame?”

James says nothing; he simply wraps his arms around her.

The sobs begin shortly after, the absolute collapse of the strong external persona, and she only hopes that things will one day be better. She’s not sure why she has broken today, of all days. The cracks in the strong façade, erupting into fissures and canyons, revealing the broken, terrified woman behind the fraudulent face she presents to the galaxy. Her nose is snotty, her tears mingling, and James continues to hold her, to let her sob.

His t-shirt is damp from the tears and other things, and Adelaide glances up at him, to see the tears in his eyes.

“It was a shit mission, from start to finish,” he says. “Watching the asari lose their planet? Watching as Kai Leng proceeded to beat the loving shit out of us, participating in having our asses handed to us—I never want to feel like that again.”

“We still have to find out what’s happening on Sanctuary after this,” Adelaide mumbles. “But I don’t want to.”

“Let’s just focus on why you were attacked today,” James says softly. “We need time to get our heads back in the game, and we can’t do that without you. You’re our poster-girl, our leader, my friend…”

She barely hears him as she spirals back down into misery, into that awful nothingness that exists below her skin. It is wrong to be this indulgent of her misery, but there is nothing left for what she once gave everything to. She has given, and given, and given, and it never feels quite like she’s done enough. There’s always one more task added, one more life to save.

One more death on her conscience.

“I know why we were attacked,” Adelaide finally mumbles. “This felt personal, like whoever ordered it was fulfilling their vendetta against me.”

James shakes his head. “No. That’s not what it was—can’t be.”

 

“No-one ever sees me—they see what I was on Torfan, but how can they understand what happened? It’s like...” she pauses for a moment, toying with the edge of her towel, buying time to try and put into words why she hates what happened that day. “It’s like… there’s a big empty void inside me, where my heart should be. I hate feeling this way.”

 

She gives him a sad smile.

 

James rubs her back gently as she speaks, his rough fingers tracing little circles over the knots between her shoulders. She leans into it, relaxing enough that she lets down the final guard that she’s kept up between them. They’ve been dancing around their feelings for one another, both terrified that the other wouldn’t want them, but in this moment, Adelaide feels content to let him just rub her back, and nothing else.

“I see you,” he says quietly. “I see _you_. Not the commander, not the Butcher of Torfan, not anything but you.  “You’re more than whatever they think you are—you’re so much more than the titles they heap on you.”

“Even now, you use my titles,” she says softly, but she is reassured that he sees the broken woman beneath the lies. “Why?”

“Because even though you think they chip away, they don’t. They don’t know you. I do,” James says, looking at her.

“Do you? Or do you believe the propaganda machine?” She knows she shouldn’t push it, but she does anyway. Might as well, to know where he really stands on this matter.

“The day they named you the first human spectre? I watched them presenting it to you, and thought—” he breaks off, his eyes darting to her face. “Sorry. I know you hate it.”

She knows the cost of what she did, and knows it well. She has saved countless lives since that horrific day of slaughter—the life-debt never able to be fully repaid. For each life she saved, sacrificed for, she remembered the cost of battle, the cost of everything.

Adelaide reaches towards him, hesitation in each move. She wants to kiss him—oh, God, does she ever—but rank, responsibility, and everything else has stopped her in the past. She leans further into his embrace, and their foreheads rest together. She pulls back, hesitant.

James is the one who closes the distance between them, infinitesimal though it is. His lips meet hers as they fall backwards onto the bed. It is a warm, comforting kiss, and all Adelaide can do is kiss back, knowing that in this moment, she feels more like herself than she has since she came back. She stops thinking, stops worrying, stops obsessing over things that she can’t change. In that kiss, she feels the shattered pieces of her heart coming back together.

A knock at the door has them bolting upright, and Adelaide wants to kill whoever interrupted them. Most likely the Alliance cunt who had interrupted everything already today. She glances at James, and sees the frustration in his eyes, and tension in his body. She groans softly and rises. Still in her towel, the feeling of wet hair against her neck, she looks at the door, and then back to the dresser.

“I should go get dressed,” she begins, and James nods. “Yeah, I should...”

“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, and leaves the room.

Alone again, Adelaide dresses. This time, she doesn’t bother getting glammed up. There’s no real point now. Her evening plans have been ruined, and she dresses simply in leggings and a loose top.

When she emerges from her bedroom, the team are talking, and she feels a flicker of mistrust as she realises that Brooks seems to have taken point. She frowns, annoyed that the stupid woman is talking as though she has the right to dictate to her team.

“The fuck’s going on here?” Adelaide snaps, her eyes darting from one person to another. “Brooks, stand down. You don’t give my team orders.”

“You were indisposed,” Brooks retorts, her eyes flashing.

_Too much cheek.._

Everything about the woman irritates Adelaide.

From her manner of speaking, to the way she apparently took command over the group, everything irritates Adelaide, rubs her the wrong way. This woman is no rookie—her finely honed sense of wrongness screaming at her. This woman is someone dangerous, though she can’t figure out what makes her think that.

“That still doesn’t mean you can just—take over—without authority to do so,” Adelaide snaps.

“I’ve worked out where they’ve come from.”

Adelaide narrows her eyes at that sentence.

 _Wonder of wonders—the woman actually has some use_ , she thinks sardonically.

“And just why do you expect me to believe you?” Adelaide asks, her arms crossed over her chest. She wonders just why Brooks thinks she knows what’s going on.

“Uh, because…” Brooks flounders, as though trying to find words to adequately express why she should take point.

Adelaide waits.

And waits some more.

Eventually, she moves towards the kitchen, determined that at least if Brooks is going to flounder this quickly, she might as well be pleasantly and mildly intoxicated. She’s got little time and patience with this woman, with her incessant braying about who’s responsible for the attack. The shit-storm unleashed would be immense—actually attacking another member of the Alliance would be grounds for a court-martial, and Adelaide doesn’t exactly care for another of those.

The one for Torfan had been bad enough. She remembers standing there in the dock, manacles and all.

She does not want a repeat of that.

Instead, she pours herself a glass of wine, and walks back into the living room, where Brooks and Liara have teamed up. Adelaide frowns, wondering why the Shadow Broker has decided to trust the woman she does not. Liara, of all people, should have better intel about who was behind her fall from the fish tank.

“We’re infiltrating the Silver Coast Casino. Elijah Khan’s holding a gathering,” Brooks says.

“We’re not doing anything of the sort. You do not get to make sweeping statements without my say-so, Brooks. You’re dangerously close to insubordination.” Adelaide says, her voice icy. She glances around at her team, shrugging and refusing to apologise to Brooks. They are used to her statements like this—have borne the brunt of her attitude in the past—but she is there for her crew when they need her.

“Shepard, please,” Liara begs, and Adelaide narrows her eyes at the asari.

“What is it?”

“The gun you found was traced back to Elijah Khan. A known arms dealer. We’re going to talk to him.” Liara sounded calm—though she always did.

Adelaide glances at James, and sees the same question in his eyes.

_What’re we getting into this time?_

 


	2. Part Two

“You know what? You could never be me,” Adelaide spits at the clone.

In her fury, her rage, and her fear, Adelaide knows that she has a choice—she knows she can either cement her reputation as a heartless bitch, and not bother saving the clone, or she can do what she wants to do—to save the clone.

Her finger is on the trigger before she thinks about it. But it is not the clone she aims her gun at.

She knows her clone did not ask to be here—to be used and discarded like a piece of medical waste. It was never about her—no matter what they think. Adelaide does not want to kill the one who would potentially be her biggest ally—a loophole unforeseen and unlooked for. This could be her salvation—this clone of hers. It could mean so much to have another one of her out there in the world, to have someone wearing her life like a tattered cloak of honour.

She aims her gun, instead, at Rasa.

And fires—one clean kill shot to the back of the woman’s traitorous head.

Part of Adelaide wants to use the clone—to fake her death and allow the clone to take her place. Another part of her knows that to do that would be to throw away everything she’d done since the mess on Torfan. She has saved far more lives in the years since that mission.

Standing there, faced with the choice of saving the clone, and killing it, she is wracked by indecision. In those moments, the choice crystallises, the endless possibilities spreading out before her. But she knows that if she makes the choice she wants to, she will also end up regretting it—she does not wish to use her clone in such a way.

Not in the way she herself has been used.

Not as a tool.

_ Never again. _

 

“You have a choice,” Adelaide says softly, addressing her clone for the first time since she shot Rasa.

“What choice is that?” The clone rasps, her voice ragged and her eyes hollow. “You kill me, or you let me live?” She brays a mirthless laugh, devoid of warmth and humour.

Adelaide looks at her. Sees the puppet she had become under Rasa. The puppet Cerberus wanted her to be. “I offer you a way out—a loop in the hole. You can live out your life, and I never see you again. Take off, to some far-flung system and work to repay what you became. A puppet.”

“Why would I agree to that? I wanted to  _ be  _ you—to inspire the same loyalty you have.”  She inches slowly towards the open hatch in the cargo hold. A flickering light illuminates her perfectly identical face. Adelaide looks over her shoulder for a moment, to glance at James.

It is while she is distracted that the clone makes the final, fatal mistake. The clone steps backwards, stumbling over her feet. As the  _ Normandy  _ breaks away from the docking clamps, the back of the cargo bay wide open, the clone slides backwards towards the empty sky behind them.

Adelaide is too late. That glance at James has cost her another shot at being merciful.

_ But mercy is above this sceptred sway _ —the old line about mercy, about it being found in many hands, reverberates around in Adelaide’s head as she lunges for the clone, sliding towards her and the drop to certain death. She grips her clone’s arm, but there is too little strength to keep her grip. The clone slips in her grasp, eyes widening with the realisation that she will not survive this plummet—she is no Icarus flying precariously towards the sun.

Adelaide is Daedalus—unable to stop the plunge to inevitable death. She grabs for the clone one final time, before the end comes.

And then, like Icarus, the clone is gone.

Falling.

 

Falling.

A tiny, insignificant speck.

A full stop— _ her _ full stop.

Like Adelaide should have been.

Over Alchera—that should’ve been the end of her story. The end of everything. But it hadn’t been. A semi-colon in her life. The ending of a painful, bloody career, where everything good she’d ever done had been overshadowed by a single day’s raid.

But she doesn’t want to think on that.

James hauls her back from the edge of the cargo bay, his hands strong and sure on her waist. She glances up at him, into those eyes that shine with compassion and understanding. Those dark eyes and that strong, scarred face. Like her, he is a survivor of a shitty mission—a mission that went south from the second they left the shuttle. He has seen her at her best, and at her worst, and has never faltered, never shied away from her, like so many others have. His hands linger there, as Adelaide lays her head on his shoulder, and breathes deeply.

“You did your best,” he says, his hand cupping the back of her head and cradling her in his arms. “She wanted death. Not life. Not after you proved why you’re Commander Shepard and she’s a pale imitation of the woman I know.” He pauses, and then whispers something almost inaudibly. “The woman I love.”

She pulls back from him, glancing up into those eyes again. The warmth reflected in the battle-weary, scarred face, that still manages to muster a smile that splits his face in two. He smiles now, and it is the most beautiful thing she’s seen all day. She stands on her tiptoes, her arms coming to lock behind his head, around his neck, as their foreheads rest together.

It is a fire that burns between them, embers of long-banked desire sparking again. Their lips meet, in a clicking of teeth that sees them break apart, and laugh at the absurdity of it all. They try again, Adelaide standing on her tiptoes to reach him better. This time, their teeth don’t click as they kiss.

Desire fans through her. A roaring beast that demands she give in. She knows that if she does give in, let herself admit to the feelings she has for him— it will be the end of months of dancing around one another’s feelings. They break apart, as James moves to unclip her breastplate. She fumbles to unclip his, standing on tiptoes to reach the one on the shoulder. Their mouths meet again, another searing kiss. All thumbs, Adelaide manages to release the one on James’s arm guard, and it falls to the floor. They slowly walk backwards, discarding armour as they do. She tugs his t-shirt up, breaking the kiss long enough for him to pull his shirt up over his head. Then she pauses, and leads him towards the elevator. They step into the elevator, Adelaide walking backwards, never wanting to break contact.

She is pinned against the wall, his hands on her waist, tugging her BDU shirt up over her head, his hands worshiping her breasts through the bra she has on. He reaches around for the clasp, and she smiles, her head against the smooth metal. His mouth drags a trail of kisses down her neck, and Adelaide bites her lip to stop the moan that threatens to escape. He lifts her, so she has to wrap her legs around his waist as she grinds against the hardness in his pants. James moans softly, having freed her breasts from the bra, and lets them settle, skin against skin. She can feel the dampness of her knickers through the BDU pants she wears.

He hooks his fingers in the waistband of her BDUs, and gives her a wicked smile that promises so much. She shimmies out of her pants, hoping that the CCTV has been deactivated. Now she stands naked, save for her knickers. Her hair is falling loosely around her face, getting into her eyes as she looks up at James. He brushes it back gently, and kisses her again.

“You have too many clothes on,” Adelaide murmurs, desperate to feel him inside her. If he doesn’t stop teasing, she might burst with her release any time soon. She fumbles with the button on the top of his fly, working it open with her thumb as James kisses the hollow between her breasts. He lifts her leg, his hands on her calf as she works his fly open, and palms his penis, feeling how hard he is against her hand. His head rolls back as she moves her hand up and down, through the fabric of his undershorts.

“ _ Dios _ ,” James whispers, his mouth so close to her ear that she shivers from the touch. “Now you’re just being cruel, Lola.”

His hand travels up her leg, closer and closer to the spot where she desperately wants him to touch. She continues to tease him, dragging her nails gently against the underside of his cock as she bites her lip to stop the moan of pleasure threatening to erupt. His other hand strokes along the underside of her breasts, tracing a path along the now non-existent scar. There is nothing but them in that moment—nothing but their slow seduction of one another. A few moments later, no longer able to hold off the joining of their bodies, he nudges the tip of his erection to slide against her clit. She opens to him, her head rolling back as he slides in, and stills, his eyes closed as their foreheads rest together, lips joining in a kiss as they begin to move as one. Slow, measured strokes, thrusting in and withdrawing slightly, as Adelaide relishes the feeling of him inside her. He wraps her legs around his waist, supporting her body as he continues to thrust, one of her hands braced behind her on the wall. The other hand rakes down his back, grabbing his arse and clenching it.

Her release shudders through her, a cry escaping her lips and James chooses to kiss her, to smother the sound as he too, finds his release. She breathes quick, shallow breaths as they return to the earthly plane, the sweat of their lovemaking cooling on their flushed skin.

But they don’t disentangle themselves just yet. Adelaide is unwilling to leave the comfort offered in his embrace, and he is just as unwilling to leave her alone. She drags her fingers down his biceps, to his forearms. Their fingers link together as she smiles a lopsided smile at him, and he groans, finally unsheathing himself from her. A momentary bereavement.

“Shower?” James suggests, when she hits the button on the elevator to take them up to her private quarters.  She only gives him a lopsided smile as she exits the elevator moments later, heading for the bathroom.

It is a tiny, cramped space, and Adelaide knows that with James’s bulk, the space will be even smaller. But she doesn’t particularly care. She’ll make it work—somehow. She touches the hot water button, and the water trickles from the showerhead. It takes a few minutes for the water to come to its full pressure and once it does, she makes quick work of her ablutions. There is still enough time for them to resume their exploration of one another’s bodies, later, even.

James is waiting for her in her cabin. He smiles as he takes in her towelled form. His eyes linger appreciatively on her arse, as she drops the towel in a seductive slide that reveals the curve of her breasts, the lithe shape of the body beneath. Kneeling before him, a feline smile curving her lips, she caresses the underside of his cock with her fingers, wrapping her hand around his shaft, feeling that silken hardness as she moves her hand up and down. Her other hand braces against his leg, as she lowers her head to take him in her mouth. Her eyes meet his, as he smiles, gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. James’s cock twitches, as she glances up at him. His head lolls back, and Adelaide smiles softly around the tip of his cock. Her hand wraps around the base of his cock, she swirls her tongue once more around the tip, her mouth meeting her hand as she continues to lick and suck. His hand rests on her shoulder as he groans in pleasure, his thumb caressing her cheek as she bobs up and down.

“My turn,  _ Lola, _ ” James says, tugging her up. His voice is somewhat rough, but his actions are gentle. He backs her towards the bed, his hands on her waist. Adelaide’s arms loop around his neck as she kisses him. She falls onto the bed, her head missing the pillow as James kneels down. He hooks her legs over his shoulders, and she bites her lip. The feathery kisses James presses to her inner thigh make her toes curl with pleasure. She arches up as James continues the light touches, his mouth tracking along her thigh, until she reaches down with her hand to touch herself. She feels the dampness between her legs, and James glances up at her.

“Stop teasing me,” Adelaide says, her voice breathy as James continues stroking her inner thigh. He pays no attention to her impatience, taking his time to ravish her thoroughly. Her breath comes in short pants, and James smiles as her eyes meet his.

“I’ll tease you for as long as I want to,” James replies, a smirk on his handsome features. She rakes her hand over his mohawk, tufting her fingers in his hair. He continues to tease her, slowly making his way to the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. His tongue touches her clit, and she arches up off the bed. A finger slides inside her, and Adelaide moans, the hand not in his hair touching her breasts.

“Come on, James,” she mumbles, as he removes both his tongue and his fingers.

Her impatience is rewarded as James climbs onto the bed, kissing her as he slides his cock into her. There is no hurrying this time, no rush to feel the other. It is slow, languid lovemaking, each gasp and sigh and gentle encouragement serving to heighten the enjoyment of each other. In this second unhurried coupling, James worships her body in a way that Adelaide never knew existed, as he kisses each scar and freckle. She rolls her hips up to meet his thrusts, her fingernails digging into his back as he brings her to pleasure. James groans as he thrusts home one final time, and stills inside her. 

Lying there later in the hushed cabin, James’s arm wraps around her waist as they doze, his hand resting on her hip. She revels in the touch, the sheer claiming of him and of her, as they are. There are no barriers—for they have seen the best and the worst in each other and not shied away. Adelaide smiles softly at the thought that she is safe with James, that he will take her good days, and her bad days, and love her unconditionally. Though they’ve not officially declared anything—the uncertainty of the next stages of the war mean it’s impossible to do so— she will treasure the now.

The second they leave the confines of the  _ Normandy _ , she resumes the mask that she always wears. That carefully-crafted, well-disguised persona of the Butcher of Torfan. She cannot afford to be anything but—the uncompromising and unflinching woman who stands in the eye of the storm. The soldier willing to not only destroy herself for the greater good, but meet that threat head-on. She must be that woman now, and any sign of weakness will destroy her. Adelaide knows that, understands the price she pays for that, and does not flinch.

Talking quietly among themselves, they walk towards the obscenity of wealth that the Silversun Strip promises. She hears the chatter as they continue back towards the apartment, back into that seething mass. This section of the Citadel never sleeps, it writhes and seduces people to place large bets, to visit expensive, exclusive restaurants where the cheapest item on the menu is someone from one of the lower wards weekly wages. It could be a good life-- a life where the ugly stuff is brushed under the rug and never mentioned. Adelaide could get used to that sort of life-- to the life where she didn’t dream of Mindoir. 

It is an explosion of colour and light, of flashing objects and other paraphernalia. The latest poster for a Blasto movie, with its own flashy display and VR headgear is shouting about Blasto curing the genophage. The noise from the advertisements causes her to sigh, and try to filter it out, but she finds it difficult to filter noise out—her auditory sensory processors haven’t been the same since her death and resurrection. One more thing Cerberus got wrong. But she pushes that unwanted thought out of her head. Doesn’t want to think about Cerberus, doesn’t want to think about how she suffocated to death after ordering Joker out into the final escape pod.

So instead, she thinks about the smells wafting out of restaurants, the doors thrown wide open as they pass. Her stomach grumbles, and she turns to James, to find him three windows down, towards a taqueria. She smiles softly.

_ Of course it would be burritos _ , she thinks, as she joins him at the window, where an asari with a bad temper is throwing a knife biotically towards another member of the staff. The white and violent orange chef’s regalia gives away her position in the staff. The unfortunate staff member manages to stop it with a stasis, and the knife clatters to the ground. Adelaide shakes her head, and hides a grin. James orders their burritos, and some five minutes later, they walk away from the taqueria, food in hand. The smell of cumin and cilantro mixed with the tangy yogurt makes her groan in pleasure, as she unwraps the foil and greaseproof paper from the top of the burrito, and bites in.

Back at the apartment, Adelaide glances around at the décor, taking it all in for the first time. Anderson’s bolthole is gorgeous, classy, and tasteful—a grand piano in one corner of one room, the leather couches that smell of real beeswax leather conditioner, the low coffee table on which a graceful vase of flowers sits. The entire apartment is larger than any house she has ever lived in, grander than anything a girl growing up poor on a subsistence farm on Mindoir could ever dream of. It is certainly larger than her miserable little bedsit on Arcturus that no longer exists thanks to the Reapers, and she doesn’t care that it is gone.

She sits down at the piano, but does not play it—she doesn’t know  _ how _ to play it, beyond a few discordant, dissonant key bashings. Perhaps one day she’ll have time—she’ll  _ make _ time. One day. When the war is over, and they are left standing victorious, she’ll learn to play this beautiful, celebrated instrument. When the war is over—she’ll learn to relax, she’ll learn so many more skills, ones that do not rely on her ability to hold her hand steady as she readies the kill shot.

One day, she will not be the Butcher of Torfan. One day, she will simply be Adelaide, with her wide hips and wry mouth turned up at the corners in a smirk, digging in the dirt. One day, she will be a gardener, turning the blood and countless lives destroyed into a meaningful thing—feeding people, not killing them. She will one day stand in a paddock, back aching from the hours she has spent slashing, and marvel at the changes in her life. But this is only if she survives the war. If she  _ lives _ , instead of merely existing, an oxygen thief who should’ve died long ago.

She refuses to spiral down into that hateful cycle. Refuses to let herself go there again. Not after today—not when her team followed her through hell and back because they were loyal to  _ her _ , not to the Alliance, nor any other association. They followed her to Ilos, through the Omega Relay, through the tenuous peace agreements now in the galaxy: the krogans and turians making nice, a retaking of the quarian homeworld, and peace between the quarians and geth. Such miracles she has wrought, such momentous deeds—but she does not do it for the accolades, she does not do it for shiny medals newly minted to commend and recognise valiant, brave, idiotic deeds on the battlefield. She does it because she has seen— _ dreamt— _ of the fate that awaits everyone if they do not beat the Reapers. For every death—for every scar and scorched earth left behind, there will be lives saved, lives not cut short.

James cracks open a beer and hands it to her, and then opens his own. They clink the bottles together, before taking a long-awaited swig. The icy-cold beer is delicious, the bubbles and head on the light, fruity wheat beer a welcome taste. The silence is comfortable, a quiet lull before the chiming of Adelaide’s terminal indicates messages. She shrugs, and ignores it for now. She will deal with it later, when she is back aboard the  _ Normandy _ . For now, once she finishes her beer, she plans on getting into the hot tub, sliding her aching body into the warmth of the water. She waves her omnitool to make sure the apartment is locked against unwelcome interlopers, and glances back at James.

She stands, having finished her beer, and smiles impishly at James

“Wanna try the hot tub?” she asks him, moving to put the empty beer bottle in the recycling unit. She peels her shirt from her body as James follows her, his hands coming to rest on her waist. He kisses her neck, and Adelaide feels her knickers getting damp as he trails kisses down her neck, across her shoulders, and down her back. He hoists her up onto the kitchen countertop, and she bites her lip as he palms her breast. Her legs lock around his waist as she reaches for his belt buckle, tugging impatiently at it.

_ Should probably close the blinds… _

An unwelcome and unwanted thought intrudes as she pushes him away gently. “We should lower the blinds, y’know?” Adelaide suggests, as James smiles. “We don’t want the entire Citadel knowing what we’re doing…”

James laughs. “You didn’t particularly seem to care in the elevator,” he says, but he acquiesces, waving his omnitool to close the blinds.

“That’s cause I know the password to erase the files,” she says, her smile wide and wicked. “Being the captain of my ship has  _ many _ advantages.”

“Oh yeah?” James leans in, nipping her lower lip. “Like what?”

Adelaide nods. “I don’t think the blinds should be up….” She breaks off as she drapes her arms around James’s shoulders, his lips meeting hers.

“Like this?” he asks, as he pulls away, only to unclasp her bra.

They are lost in one another, making up for lost time, for the time they may not have later.


	3. Part Three

_ London, 2186 _

She knows the end is coming—that all their work comes down to this moment. Adelaide stares into the grey dawn breaking over the Thames as Big Ben chimes its hours.

They have arrived at the crossroads—but there are no devils to make bargains with here—only the stench of death and dead bodies, lying discarded in the streets. There is only the steely resolution of all the troops she has mustered, the uniting of former enemies into allies. All her work, all the sweat, blood, and tears, have led to this battle today. She does not know if they will win today, tomorrow, or a hundred years from now. But she does know that she will not survive long enough to see the end.

London is burning.

Its flames fan out, licking upwards to the heavens. There are no heroes in the flames, nothing but death, and an ending. A calmness that belies the storm beneath the ending of the world. Because the world—the galaxy—will end if they do not stop the Reapers. Unlike those soldiers who gave it all to the cause, this era has no songs to be sung, no battle music or whirling bagpipes. It is just the flicker of flame, and the unceasing rattle of assault rifles. It is the sounds of death, of the awful finality and ugliness of war. The stench of decay and old eezo leaking from canisters meet her nostrils, but she does not plug her nose with her fingers—there’s no point.

There’s no point to anything but ending this war, here and now. She thinks of those she has lost along the way—the deaths she could not prevent. Kaidan—dead on Virmire, his life forfeit to the cruel gods. Jenkins—dead within the first five minutes on Eden Prime—another death she did not prevent, could not prevent. Benezia T’Soni—breaking free of Sovereign’s indoctrination. The colonists she failed to save from the Thorian. The deaths that matter, the named and the nameless, are all an indelible stain on her cosmic copybook, the deaths she truly blames herself for. The krogan who had died on Virmire, in Saren’s misguided attempt to free them from the genophage. Mordin—sacrificing himself to deliver a cure that promised hope for the krogan. Thane—an assassin’s blade turned against the assassin. Legion—who, at the end, used a personal pronoun for the first time—sacrificed itself for the quarians and the geth. Each death is a cut, deep and personal. Each life—a chance to do better by those who live yet.

She leans from the broken window in the ruins of Westminster Abbey, and watches the soldiers scurrying, running, as the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds. It is the first sunrise she has seen since the war began. She leans her face into the warmth, savouring the brief warmth in the chilly October morning. There is no coffee, no cup to wrap her frozen fingers around—no warm scarf to wrap herself up in.  Those are luxuries here on the front, where dead bodies lie all around them, white sheets stained brown from all the blood.

Frozen in the frosty morning.

_ What, will these hands ne’er be clean? _

The heavy frost is dazzling in the sunrise.

She looks away, blinded by the brilliance. An arm snakes around her waist, pulling her to him, and she smiles, leaning into the touch.

“Morning,” James says, resting his chin on her shoulder as his breath caresses her ear.

“I’ve been awake for hours,” Adelaide says, leaning back into his embrace.

The sun moves slowly up the sky, an eternal ascent and descent that will continue for eternity. They have come too far to lose, too far to let the Reapers win this battle—this galaxy will continue. Adelaide knows that there is too much at stake if they fail, but they will  _ not _ fail. Too many lives have been sacrificed, too many have returned to the field hospitals only to die from lack of medigel. Too many turned into husks, marauders, banshees, and brutes—and now, at the end of it all, they will survive.

A quote from an old movie comes to mind, and a sad smile curves her mouth as she thinks of it.

_ I’m glad you’re with me, Samwise Gamgee. Here at the end of all things _ .

It is how she feels, in James’s embrace. He has touched her life, brought her through the horrors of despair and grief, and showed her that there is still beauty in this world, in this galaxy. It is not Mindoir she thinks of in those moments, of the home that had been, and the home that was lost. This is the home she is fighting for—that they’re  _ all _ fighting for. For the galaxy—not just the human homeworld.

“I’m glad you’re with me, James.” She turns in his embrace, burying her head in his t-shirt as the tears begin flowing. “But I refuse to say goodbye to you. Because we  _ will _ make it through today, and the next day, and the day after that.”

“I love you,” James says softly, and Adelaide’s heart shatters one final time. She blinks the tears away as they fall. He tilts her chin up, and kisses her, a tender, loving kiss that only serves to shatter her heart once again.

 

When she reaches the end, when she knows there is nothing left, she will remember that moment before the darkness swallows her. That kiss, and the love that only flourished in the war, will be the final moments she remembers, the moments she chooses to remember. She does not remember his name, his face, his scent, but she remembers the man that came into her life at the worst possible time. She remembers him as she flings herself into the whirlpool of colour and light that encompasses her. She remembers his smile, as she gives her soul over to the great eternity—the  _ only _ —eternity. She is endless, infinite, powerful beyond all measure.

This is the only way to go forwards, the only way for this galaxy to survive beyond this point. Her soul is ripped from the husk of her old body, her memories harvested for the next cycle.

She is home.


End file.
